In the words of Wayne the Magnificent;
Build a Little; Test a Little; Learn a Lot
It is helpful to remember how slow and short ranged the first modern torpedoes were.
Robert Whitehead, the inventor of the self-propelled torpedo, “refined” his 1866 design such that by 1870 it could travel 1,000 yards at six-knots when the Royal Navy ordered its first batch.
Sure, at the time it would be easy to scoff at the tactical utility of this expensive and mechanically quirky weapon … but that did not consider how technology works. By 1890 they were going 30-knots at much further ranges.
45-years after that 1870 torpedo, the Imperial German Navy would sink the RMS Lusitania and declare unrestricted U-boat warfare in the North Sea and in to the Atlantic using torpedoes that could travel 3,500 yards at 35 knots or 8,400 yards at 27 knots.
Today, a century and a half later, in open source we can see the US MK-48 heavy weight torpedo can travel dozens of nautical miles at over 40-knots to their target.
Along those lines we should be thinking of this simple, short range, easy target demonstrator;
Amphibious transport dock ship USS Portland (LPD 27) conducted a high-energy laser weapon system demonstration, Dec. 14, while sailing in the Gulf of Aden.
During the demonstration, the Solid State Laser – Technology Maturation Laser Weapons System Demonstrator (LWSD) Mark 2 MOD 0 aboard Portland successfully engaged a static surface training target. Portland previously tested the LWSD in May 2020 when it successfully disabled a small unmanned aerial system while operating in the Pacific Ocean.
The Office of Naval Research selected Portland to host the laser weapon technology in 2018. The LWSD is considered a next-generation follow-on to the Laser Weapon System (LaWS) that afloat forward staging base USS Ponce (AFSB(I)-15) tested for three years while operating in the Middle East.
Lasers are not “new” – they have been growing in power and efficiency incrementally for decades. Each year they are and will increase along the same path. As they do, they will carve out more and more of a utility wedge for defensive and naturally offensive operations.
Will they be a wonder weapon that will solve our problems? No. The torpedo wasn’t either … but it did change behavior, tactics, and design of warships.
There is another warning from the history of torpedo development; you cannot classify technology or math. Smart nations with resources will see something that works and will then buy or produce something similar … or even better than what you have.
As we prepare to send more lasers downrange, we also need to start thinking about what we need to do to build resiliency in the face of receiving fire as well.
The enemy – whoever that might become – gets to shoot back.
